


Never To Forgive

by CloudDreamer



Series: Demon Eyes [16]
Category: Dr. Carmilla (Musician), Once Upon a Time (In Space) - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Dr Carmilla Is A Bitch And I Love Her So Much, Gore, Like Really Old Age, Like This Guy Has Been Aging Slowly For Millenia It's Really Gross, Medical Conditions, Old Age, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27010390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: The old king will be dead soon. She's here to pay her respects.
Relationships: King Cole & Dr Carmilla
Series: Demon Eyes [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698556
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Stowaways' Shenanigans





	Never To Forgive

**Author's Note:**

> Me, half joking: I want to write but I don't have any ideas, Maki say something cryptic for me to obsess over.  
> Maki: So what's King Cole's deal anyway?  
> Me, sobbing: Oh, god, what's King Cole's deal anyway?

He looks tired.

That’s the first thing Carmilla notes when she sees him again. The toothy smile that spreads across his face is something vile, leaving her feeling vaguely nauseated. A difficult achievement, for someone who’s seen as much gore as she has. It’s not that his ancient form is particularly distorted — he hasn’t aged with grace, but she’s not the type to be put off by unconventional body shapes. 

It’s not the spiderwebs of veins pulsating black across his neck, the transparent tubes that dig into his twisting flesh to pump some viscous sludge through his body, or the oh so familiar iron tang of blood that’s barely covered from her sharp nose by the rubbing alcohol. It’s the leer in his perfectly preserved eyes, unchanging from the day they’d met. 

The three little pigs stand guard, crouching at the bottom of their King’s towering throne. She recognizes each little click their mechanical pieces make, can guess the materials used, bit by bloody bit. Part of her, the part that isn’t recognizing the mixture of hunger and bone deep ache in everything the King does, wants to fix them. Not to make them into what they were before, of course, that’d be impossible. But she could make them better.

Or, at the very least, make them her own. And that’s basically the same thing. 

Her teeth match theirs, just as sharp, and her body is just as strong as theirs, just as ready to lunge into action at any moment. There’s traces of viscera scattered throughout this room, guts pulled out on the cold stone floor where she crouches, and blood still dripping down their chins from where they guzzled it right up. She sees their violence in the set of the jaw and wants to crush the abominations with a powerful blow, ripping their wires out of their chest. That image rises slowly and then all at once, like acid in the back of her throat. She entertains the mutually exclusive desires all at once, the want to make better and the creeping violence, infecting every part of her mind.

It’s been too long since she’s fed. 

She knows this man. 

She knows his insatiable urges, seen them spread across this room and dozens just like it. Bones torn out one by one, some cracked into smaller pieces and others managed to be retrieved wholesale, litter the edges, discarded but not any less soaked in bodily fluids. A precious trophy lies slumbering in cryostasis by his side. Right side, like she was once his right hand man. Like she still is, in a hundred thousand ways. A little fucked up, if Carmilla’s being honest, not that her own cloning project didn’t get out of hand in its own way. At least she used herself as the base:

“Doctor Carmilla,” he says, twisting his head to try to get a better look at her. Skin stretches, layers flapping against each other. His dark brown eyes are set deep into his skull, barely visible beneath the layers of once-white hair he barely bothers to brush out of his way. It practically covers him, and the uncharitable part of Carmilla wonders how long it’s been since he’s bathed. “It has been some time. I’d hoped our reunion would be under better circumstances, but... alas.”

“Spare me the monologue, love?” she requests, words measured. Tone polite, the last endearment a too familiar twist on his title. His face twists, trying to make a frown, but it seems he’s forgotten how. 

“Right to the point. You always were direct. Never much saw the point of restlessness for folks like us, but to each their own.”

His bones creek as they settle inside those layers of flesh she could rip away with ease. Before his three little pigs would sink their razors into her own form, tear out her innards, and she’d live all the while, gut trying to seal shut while they still dig around in there, an endless meal. An endless toy.

“There’s no us,” she says, and she knows he was trying to provoke her. That last remaining sparkle in his eyes and guttural chuckle test her patience, test destiny. How much longer must she wait to watch his form fall, as bloodied as those he’s left in pieces in this very room? “This... merely a courtesy. I’ve come to bid you adieu.” 

He tries to laugh. The sound doesn’t fit the big room, too small to echo properly. 

“Are you here to kill me? After all this time spent cutting up my men when you could’ve just walked in?”

She shakes her head. 

“I’ve considered it a couple of times. But, no, I’m not here as an assassin. I’d hate to rob them of their vengeance or the narrative of a satisfying finale.” Mostly the second. She’s a storyteller first, a doctor second, and a killer last. In this moment, anyway. “Your defense grid will fall soon enough. My children have seen to that.” 

“Your children?” He raises a thick, bushy eyebrow. “You don’t exactly strike me as the maternal type.” 

She considers striking him with the palm of her hand, shattering his nose, and maybe the skull behind it. She doesn’t. 

“My Mechanisms,” she clarifies. “My _successful_ Mechanisms.”

“Of course,” he sneers, and it’s funny, for a moment, how childish he seems. How unused to restraining his bile he is, when with anyone else, he’d be able to destroy them. He looks so much older than her, the years carved into his body, but she’s still older. Barely looks twenty three, from where malnutrition had eaten away at her before this sick hunger did. 

“Jealous?”“Never.”A little bit, then. It’s clear in how quickly he answers.

“It doesn’t matter. This city will fall before a fortnight has passed. I’d say your goodbyes to anything you still hold affection for, but I suspect you’ll be surrounded by that one thing right until the end.” Z


End file.
